BioCraft: cultivating only the good in meat

“More than ¼ of the environmental effects of the entire animal industry are related to pet food,” says Shannon Falconer, PhD, CEO and founder of Biocraft Pet Nutrition. “If cats and dogs were their own country, they’d be the fifth largest meat-consuming country in the world. And producing all that meat is simply brutal in its use of land, water, energy and its greenhouse gas emissions.”

MEAT FROM A BIOREACTOR

So this is where Biocraft comes in, convinced that they can make a difference in providing something much more environmentally sustainable. Founded in 2016 and based in Vienna, Biocraft is the leading biotech company developing cultured meat for the growing pet food market. Now, this could do with a bit of an explanation: we’re not talking about plant-based meat-alternatives. This is meat grown from animal cells. “We are perfecting cell lines of mouse, rabbit and chicken meat because cats and dogs absolutely love them and were born to eat them,” Shannon explains. In terms of process, the meat is grown under carefully regulated temperatures in bioreactors, with the cells being fed with the nutrients they need to get bigger and stronger. Imagine large stainless-steel vats with a thick paste whirling around inside… The bioreactors mimic what happens in an animal’s own body as it grows and the final product is a pâté-style ingredient rich in all the right nutrients our pets need. As Shannon explains, the benefits are manifold: “It’s better for the environment, for animal welfare, and it also helps avoid a whole range of pathogenic bacteria that can contaminate traditional meat people currently feed their pets.”

BioCrafted meat is designed to supply big pet food brands who are interested in buying tons and tons of it to use as an ingredient for pet food. “It will be in wet and dry food, for cats and dogs, and will replace the traditional meat portion of pet food,” Shannon says. “At first we thought about creating our own brand of pet foods but then we thought: we’re scientists, not marketing professionals.”

SCALE & OPTIMISATION

The company has been growing and is looking to launch commercially in 2026. In the meantime, they are working on perfecting the production process, optimising the parameters of the bioreactors, and fine-tuning the nutritional profile of their ingredient. In this effort, the company received an equity investment from Tilia Ventures, a VC firm backed by the EIF under the InvestEU programme. “We’re now reaching the point where we are becoming price-competitive compared to traditional meat producers. Eventually we’d like to set up our own production facility so that we can start producing the quantities that we need to effectively supply pet-food companies. This is what the future of pet food looks like,” she concludes.

Company: Biocraft Pet Nutrition (Austria)

Type of business: animal feed

Financial intermediary: Tilia VC

Number of employees: 10

Financing purpose: R&D, product development

EIF financing: InvestEU

For further information about EIF intermediaries in Austria, please refer to: http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/where/at/index.htm